KFMG Podcast S02 Episode 13: JuJu Chan

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KFMG Podcast S02 Episode 13: JuJu Chan

“I love doing my own action. Usually, I will insist.”

It was a pleasure to talk to the rising Asian American movie star JuJu Chan Yuk-wan on the latest episode of the Kung Fu Movie Guide Podcast. JuJu was born in Hong Kong and raised in America where she has enjoyed prominent roles in movies like the Netflix-produced sequel Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon: Sword of Destiny (2016) – directed by kung fu movie legend Yuen Woo-ping, and starring Donnie Yen and Michelle Yeoh – plus roles in films like Fist of the Dragon (2014) for Roger Corman and Jesse V. Johnson‘s Savage Dog …

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KFMG Podcast S02 Episode 12: Katrina Durden / Yolanda Lynes, David Cheung

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KFMG Podcast S02 Episode 12: Katrina Durden / Yolanda Lynes, David Cheung

“My dream was always to do what you love with the people you love. To do that, even in a little way, is a dream come true.” Katrina Durden

This is an action-packed show with not one, not two, but three up-and-coming UK martial arts stars. Firstly, I catch up with the directors, writers and stars of the new martial arts action flick The Real Target: David Cheung and Yolanda Lynes. I first met the ‘kung fu couple’ at the inaugural Fighting Spirit Film Festival in July 2016, when the two were screening their Real Target short film. You can listen back …

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Profile: Katrina Durden

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Profile: Katrina Durden

Date of birth: 28 March, 1990 (London)

Occupation: Actor, martial artist, fight choreographer.

Style: Taekwondo

Biography: Katrina Durden was born in London into a family of writers, journalists and filmmakers. Her uncle is the British TV and film actor, Richard Durden. Discovering a passion for performance as a child, she studied acting as a teenager at various institutions, including the Sylvia Young Theatre School in London, and also, in 2007, a placement at the Moscow Arts Theatre. In 2008, she trained at the Lyric Theatre and studied performing arts at St Charles Catholic College. Inspired by strong female characters in films, video games and …

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Call of Heroes (2016)

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Call of Heroes (2016)

This kung fu yarn contains moments of genuine invention courtesy of Sammo Hung‘s clever, if overly traditional fight choreography, which seems to revel in an old-fashioned glee. Aside from the more obvious and clunky wirework, Sammo creates a throwback to the Shaw Brothers bloodbaths of old, throwing every weapon he can muster into the mix like Lau Kar-leung on a rampage. Benny Chan is a veteran of mainstream entertainment and keeps the film relevant, despite strong cinematic leanings towards not just kung fu films but also the wuxia tradition, Samurai movies and spaghetti westerns. The latter is the film’s most …

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Mechanic: Resurrection (2016)

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Mechanic: Resurrection (2016)

If you’re in the mood to watch Jason Statham kill a load of people – and pretty much nothing else – then this will do the job. This sequel to the 2011 remake of the Charles Bronson movie, The Mechanic, has nothing to do with the film’s original themes other than the use of the same central character, who now has even less to do with being a mechanic. It starts in Rio where Statham kills his first few people when he refuses to kill some other people for a crook named Crain (Sam Hazeldine). Statham absconds to Michelle Yeoh‘s …

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Ghost in the Shell (2017)

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Ghost in the Shell (2017)

A perfectly entertaining sci-fi action film which is part The Fifth Element, part The Matrix, and only partially the masterpiece it is actually based on. This sidesteps the animé’s existential questions in favour of a more predictable revenge motive, and never quite reaches the transcendent heights of the original film and its neo-noir aesthetic. Part of the issue stems from the live action which, ironically, seems to be at least 80 per cent digitally animated. By physically embodying such wide concepts as memory theory and artificial intelligence immediately draws on the need to focus on emotion rather than ideas, and …

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Logan (2017)

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Logan (2017)

A fitting conclusion to the Wolverine story, or at least Hugh Jackman’s part in it. Having played the bad-tempered, steel-clawed, hirsute​ immortal for 17 years, Jackman described this final chapter as the closest he ever got to being truthful to Wolverine’s real character. It is certainly the best of the isolated Wolverine films, and the most tonally separate, with moments of reflection, poignancy and genuine drama, most keenly observed in the familial relationship between Logan and Charles Xavier (Patrick Stewart, faultless). The film is set in Texas, 2029, in a dusty, isolated outback town where the washed-up, alcohol-dependent Logan works …

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KFMG Podcast S02 Episode 11: J.J. Perry

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KFMG Podcast S02 Episode 11: J.J. Perry

“I love this job. I’m so grateful I get to do this work. I never thought I was going to be doing this.”

What better way to launch the second season of podcasts than with a chat to one of Hollywood’s most beloved and prolific stunt co-ordinators, J.J. Perry. Jordan Andrew ‘J.J.’ Perry has been involved in some of the best action movies of the last 30 years, including work on huge Hollywood blockbusters likes Avatar, Iron Man, Star Trek Into Darkness, Transformers: Age of Extinction and the John Wick films. As a fight trainer, he has worked with the likes of …

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Profile: J.J. Perry

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Profile: J.J. Perry

Date of birth: 1967 (Stamford, Texas, US)

Full name: Jordan Andrew Perry

Nickname: Loco

Occupation: Second unit director, stuntman, fight choreographer, stunt co-ordinator, fight trainer, actor.

Style: Taekwondo, Hapkido

Biography: J.J. Perry is a prolific stunt co-ordinator, stuntman, second unit director and fight trainer based in Los Angeles, and a former competitive fighter. Perry was raised by his grandparents in Stamford, Texas. He first learned martial arts from the age of seven at a local school run by the former US coach of the national taekwondo team. He started competing from a young age, and received his first black belt at the age of 12. …

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Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: The Movie (1995)

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Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: The Movie (1995)

A particularly faithful big-screen debut for the TV kids show, which retains the hyperactive, rubber-suit-wearing craziness of its Japanese origins, only now with certain upgrades. The increased budget means the old campy Japanese archive footage has been replaced by big CGI transformer battles and bands like Red Hot Chili Peppers on the soundtrack. But it’s still the same old shtick, and a total sugar rush for young fans. There is a prologue scroll at the start which acts as a brief guide for any parents who might be watching before essentially launching into an extended episode of the show, with …

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